a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to system and method for controlling an inter-vehicle distance to a vehicle traveling ahead (viz., a preceding vehicle) applicable to an automotive vehicle (hereinafter, referred to as a system vehicle) equipped with the system and method which can follow up the preceding vehicle maintaining a constant (safety) inter-vehicle distance.
b) Description of the Related Art
A Japanese Patent Application First Publication No. Heisei 7-223457 published on Aug. 22, 1995 exemplifies a previously proposed system for controlling the inter-vehicle distance to the preceding vehicle for the system vehicle in which different down-shift conditions and different up-shift conditions are set according to different road surface gradients such as on a flat road surface (a gradient of its road surface is generally zero), an ascending slope (a gradient of its road surface is generally positive), and a descending slope (a gradient of its road surface is generally negative).